Diaz dazzles as the Bad Teacher in this otherwise barely entertaining piece that tries so hard to shock it suffers from exhaustion long before the final curtain falls. None of the characters fully engage the audience and, with hardly a LOL moment, this film is destined for an early appearance on the DVD ‘Coming Soon’ list.
Elizabeth Halsey (Cameron Diaz) is a teacher who hates teaching, is sarcastic to her students and rude to the other teachers. She wears very short skirts, curses, drinks and gets high during lessons. Her plans to marry her wealthy fiance fall through, so she sets her sights on a rich, handsome teacher, Scott Delacorte (Justin Timberlake) who is the newcomer at the school. She finds herself competing for his affections with an overly enthusiastic co-worker Amy (Lucy Punch), who is determined to reveal Elizabeth for the fraud that she is.
Elizabeth is over-the-top outrageous in appearance and behavior with no nuances or attempts at subtlety, and this lack of depth make her, and all the other characters, nothing more than caricatures. A lot of comedy is missed because this unlikeable lady is never held accountable for her dreadful behavior, thus there is never any sense of danger and no real conflict. It would have been far more entertaining to watch the slacker try and manipulate everyone and everything so she could get her indolent way and watch as she fails and is forced by others to do the unthinkable – teach.
The story in this film is weakened by our heroine having two separate goals; she wants to find a rich husband, and she also wants to raise $10,000 for a boob job. The latter idea is fatal as this is what stops the Big Battle for Scott Delacorte ever getting under way and instead the entire film is side-tracked by other people and events that are of little interest and stand in the way of the human story, which is what we want to see.
Obviously it’s expected that our heroine will become a better person by the end of the film, and she does, but only in the last scene. Up until these final few moments she’s been as badass as ever so it’s very bizarre when, for absolutely no reason, she does a quick flip-flop. No finale in the world could save this film, but it would have been so cool if, just for once, a ruthless bitch could have got away with lying and cheating to save her own precious skin and ultimately done the wrong thing instead of delivering the expected and politically correct Hollywood ending. As the film is going to bomb anyway, who not go down in style?
RELEASE DATES
Ireland – 17 June 2011
UK – 17 June 2011
Denmark – 23 June 2011
Germany – 23 June 2011
Netherlands – 23 June 2011
Portugal – 23 June 2011
Canada – 24 June 2011
Finland – 24 June 2011
Iceland – 24 June 2011
Norway – 24 June 2011
USA – 24 June 2011
Sweden – 25 June 2011
Argentina – 7 July 2011
France – 27 July 2011
Japan – 6 August 2011
Lithuania – 12 August 2011
Greece – 18 August 2011
Hungary – 18 August 2011
Singapore – 25 August 2011
Hong Kong – 1 September 2011
Italy – 2 September 2011
Malaysia – 20 October 2011
